Owing to the increasing use of offshore resources, there is an increasing need to service or repair items of equipment located under water. Typical examples for the use of offshore resources are offshore wind parks, the extraction of mineral oil and natural gas, but also increasingly the extraction of other raw materials, for example ores. It is known that there are large reserves of raw materials located in the Arctic. Here, there is the additional problem that these regions are not free of ice all year round. It is therefore difficult to impossible to dispatch an underwater vessel that executes necessary works by means of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
An unmanned underwater vehicle is known from WO 2015/049678 A1, the unmanned underwater vehicle comprising a further unmanned underwater vehicle. However, the underwater vehicle described here is an underwater vehicle for, for example, mine clearance. The underwater vehicle is not designed for works that are often highly complex and that therefore regularly have to be performed by remote control.
A system for marine exploration is known from WO 2014/180590 A1. The system comprises a plurality of docks and an unmanned underwater vehicle. The system also has data communication to the land, but this is not equipped for the permanent transmission of data that would be necessary for remotely controlled underwater work.
Thus a need exists for an underwater vehicle that can autonomously control an item of equipment located, for example, beneath an ice cover, and that can perform works on the latter, the works being effected by remote control. This requires, in particular, reliable and powerful data transmission.